Very Computer

I'm just quoting some of the Stallman sentences in an article I've
read and commenting them, enjoy ...

Quote:>Don't you just hate receiving Word documents in email messages? Word
>attachments are annoying

   No, I don't hate it, why should I ? May be are annoying to RMS, but
not for me and for a lot of people I do know.

Quote:>but worse than that, they impede people from switching to free

software. Maybe >we can stop this practice with a simple collective
effort. All we have to do >is ask each person who sends us a Word file
to reconsider that way of doing >things.

   Why should people switch to free software ? Why would people want
to switch to free software ? Why should anyone do what RMS is saying
and follow him in his personal paranoia ?

Quote:>Most computer users use Microsoft Word. That is unfortunate for them,

because >Word is proprietary software, denying its users the freedom
to study, change, >copy, and redistribute it.

   A joke, isn't it ? Study, change and redistribute software is not a
goal to people that just do use computers as a tool.

Quote:>And because Microsoft changes the Word file format with each release,

its >users are locked into a system that compels them to buy each
upgrade whether >they want a change or not.

   Kind of myth.

Quote:>ome people publish or post documents in Word format. Some

organizations will >nly accept files in Word format.

   Well, some may be only contacted by phone, other things does
require a fax, and so on ... is not a matter of software or computing
companies, it is just that to do the thing X you do need the resources
Y no matter what field we're talkinig about. Anyway, by the times of
Windows 3.1 doing Word things was easy, cheap, and productive (yes,
even when hang outs), and changing things (I do not think they must
change just like RMS, but perhaps they'll do) does requiere time, and
of course some better free software (or propietary, it minds me
nothing).

Quote:>Smeone I know was unable to apply for a job because resumes had to be

Word >iles. Even governments sometimes impose Word format on the
public, which is >ruly outrageous.

   Hohohoho this one really made me laugh, almost as when Gates says
Windows XP is more stable, powerful and cheap than any other Windows
version. May be a Linux user (I suppose he is proud of his brain as
usual) can't guess how to write and send a Word document without
having it himself ? Boys ...

Quote:>For us users of free operating systems, receiving Word documents is

an >inconvenience.

   Again assuming each of the free operating systems do think just
like him.

Quote:>They hesitate because they feel they must have Word available to read

the Word >files they receive.

   They hesitate just because free software is worse. People do use
the best tool available for the job they're doing (not saying Windows
is good, but sure it is better for just all workstation things).

Quote:>The practice of using the secret Word format for interchange impedes

the >growth of our community and the spread of freedom.

   Freedom ? Well I suppose I can use Windows and Word if I want to.
What really puzzles RMS is that people in fact do choose Word over the
other, why ? Because it is the best. Why is it the best ? Bussiness
practices apart, it loads faster, it does things faster, a lot of Word
trainned people do know it. As an example on my own machine (K6-2/350,
256MB RAM) Word does load in less than two seconds while Staroffice
lasts for 21 seconds (browser game is the same hehe, no matter it to
be Mozilla, Netscape, Konqueror, Galeon, Nautilus, Opera ... oh wait,
lynx loads as fast as Internet Explorer).

Quote:>While we notice the occasional annoyance of receiving a Word

document, this >steady and persistent harm to our community usually
doesn't come to our >attention. But it is happening all the time.

   I rarely receive Word documents, don't know why RMS or if he really
does reveive as many as he does say.

Quote:>Many GNU users who receive Word documents try to find ways to handle

with them.

   In the precedent paragraph, we were free operating system users,
now we are GNU users hehehehe. I thought FreeBSD was a free operating
user too.

Quote:>To cure the illness, we must convince people not to send or post Word
>documents.

   There is no illness (no more than the whole world cronic one in all
areas), and I must not convince people of anything. I think people is
free to choose propietary software if desired.

Quote:>For about a year, I've made a practice of responding to Word

attachments with >a polite message explaining why the practice of
sending Word files is a bad >thing, and asking the person to resend
the material in a non-secret format.

   Cool, I hope you've used a script, since if you are receiving as
many Word documents as you say it would have been rather time
consuming. It is your choice to do that, but has not to be mine, nor
the one of a lot other people.

Quote:>This is a lot less work than trying to read the somewhat obfuscated

ASCII text >in the Word file.

   Why don't you just install Staroffice ? That would leave you with
just a little percent of Word >=2000 unreadable documents. Also, you
could use VMware or wine (should have to pay for Word anyway), they
are said to work 100% ...

Quote:>If we all do this, we will have a much larger effect. People who

disregard one >polite request may change their practice when they
receive multiple polite >requests from various people.

   So he's telling as to contribute a world wide spam just to change a
thing that users have chosen by themselves in freedom.

Quote:> ... skipped examples ...

   He's even telling us what we must say, just for the case we are as
much unbrainned Windows users that we can not think by ourselvesc ...

Quote:>Copyright 2001 Richard Stallman
>Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are

permitted without >royalty provided the copyright notice and this
notice are preserved.

   It seems that I must keep this sencentes here to be in law :-)

   Pathetic article, pathetic point of view and rather incipient
madness ...

no... true. My father has windows 95 on his system and Office for
windows 95 installed. He's been getting emails from his contacts for
some time now that contain word documents that he cannot directly read
with his existing Office installation (which is perfectly adequate for
his work and does everything that he wants). In order to read the
attachments, I've had to install the viewer program that allows you to
view word 97 documents without having to have word 97. I suspect, that
I've got to go and install a new viewer program now he's started getting
documents created in Word XP that he cannot view with the viewer.

The viewer only allows him to view the document and copy some items out
of the document into his wp package. He looses lots of style coding etc
and sometimes the stuff copies as a right dog's dinner... He's then got
to reformat it in order to use it.

Of course, if word saved documents in a default format that was simple
and open like XML and other word processors could gracefully degrade if
they were reading documents that contained XML tagged info that they
couldn't handle, then there would be no problem... ISTR that Abiword
does degrade gracefully when reading XML tagged documents. And before
you moan that XML cannot do this or that, it can do stuff that's really
complicated like equations and tables.

Paul Cooke

--
I tried to come up with an original signature, I failed, so this is what
you're getting instead

Laugh if you want to.  There was this one company that administered the
employment exam via email, and the tests were all in some sort of
Microsoft Word format.  I did not have Word installed at the time, but I
figured that I could use one of the many word-to-whatever converters to
convert it to some printable format nonetheless.  Well, all the
converters barfed on it.  I tried booting under Windoze ME, and using
Wordpad.  Well, Wordpad worked for the most part, but I noticed that all
of the diagrams were missing.  So, I had to install Word 97 just to
print the stupid tests.  It worked, but I still had to install Word 97,
and I didn't want it installed.

Before you try to tell me that the free software word-to-whatever
converters were crap, I should say that all of the free word viewers
available from Microsoft's web site *ed up the documents even worse
than the open source ones.

OK, so Microsoft Word is a good format for you, but it's riddled with
incapatibility problems between versions, and it's not universal.
Furthermore, there are better formats than Word DOC format, it's
proprietary, and Word is expensive to boot.

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Unfortunately XML cannot "do equations" in the normal sense of the term.
MathML is more or less unuseable by human beings.
TeX/LaTeX is still the only way to write math.

--
Timothy Murphy  

tel: 086-233 6090
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

---
Angry Boss to Secretary:  Where the Hell is my Report!

Secretary meekly to Boss: Sorry, I was just recompiling Word 2000 to fix
some bugs in the macro parser.
---

The worst statement Stallman has ever made is still:

"However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom
to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this
because it is really a form of power, not a freedom."

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.html

Who the hell does he think he is to take copyright rights out of the
hands of the author?  The point is moot anyway, any self-respecting
non-GNUbie would laugh in his face.

Ian

Quote:> I'm just quoting some of the Stallman sentences in an article I've read
> and commenting them, enjoy ...

>>Don't you just hate receiving Word documents in email messages? Word
>>attachments are annoying

>    No, I don't hate it, why should I ? May be are annoying to RMS, but
> not for me and for a lot of people I do know.

You rightly say that most people don't care about the underlying
technology/programs. What they want is something that "just works". Many
times I have had to explain to people how to save their Word documents in
Rich Text Format so that people with older versions of Word can read them.

And that is the point - programs like Word should be helping
communication, not hindering it. A user of Word XP(?) should not have to
even give a second thought about whether his customer (important things,
customers!) has the same version software as he does. It should "just
work" and if it does not, someone, somewhere, has failed. The finger, in
this case, points directly at Microsoft!

--

Ian - looking through a glass onion

Whenever I recieve a resume for a UNIX position that is an attached
word document which does NOT include either an attached or inline
plaintext version, I delete the email immediately.

Ummm...Because it doesnt cost anything?

In the current world of dying companies and massive layoffs, most
intelligent companies are beginning to look at cutting corners in places
other than staff.  One of the first (and possibly easiest) corners that
should be cut in this case is one of software licensing.  If theres a
free thing that does what your pay thing does, you switch to the free
thing.  Its all very elementary.

Because theres a recession going on, thats why.

Word doesnt just suck because its proprietary.  It sucks because it creates
massive, bloated files that decay easily.  Also because microsoft does its
damnedest to make good and sure that word is the only thing that can read
and write them.

1.  They DO change the file format with each release.
2.  Users ARE locked into a system, therefore, that compels them to buy
    each upgrade whether they want to or not.

Where is the myth?

Hundreds of companies make telephones and fax machines,  and there are
many carriers.  Your comparison would only be valid if you were talking
about Microsoft Telephone (TM)---which only works when it talks to other
Microsoft Telephones (TM).

Wow, that was alot of words.  What did they mean?

Though there are conversion utilities, they are not foolproof and are
also fairly obscure.

There has never once been a version of word released for a free operating
system.  I wonder why?

Apparently you do not work in the industry.  If you did, you would understand
unquestionable that most of the people in it are complete morons, and will
use exactly what theyre told to use by other complete morons, whether what
theyre told to use is a piece of shit or not.

No, it isnt.

And pay through the nose for them.

I cant help but notice that no one (including microsoft) lowered their
software prices when that "huge warez ring" was busted at MIT last month.

Isnt the reason that software prices are so high because of pirating?

At least thats what microsoft and adobe say.

That does not follow.

Apparently you arent using word at the moment.  I happen to know that it
contains an in-line spell checker.

Than what?  It loads slower than abiword, ill tell you that.

Does what faster?  I can spell check a 300 page document with dict and
sed in about 4 seconds.

Youre loading star office and all of its modules, numbnuts.  Not *just*
the word processor portion.  Open every single application that microsoft
office comes with and see how long it takes.

Internet explorer is embedded in the windows "shell".  It loads fast because
most of it is already running when you double click on the icon.

And what exactly do you receive [sic], mostly?

I see youve never actually used freeBSD, which is arguably just as gnu
centric as linux.

Hopefully theyre free to choose grammar checkers as well.

I actually find myself quite surprised that youre capable of rational
thought in the first place, let alone the ability to actually make
choices.

They do, with word.  But why should linux users have to bend over
and get assraped by microsoft without even being direct customers?

You evidently dont understand what spam is.  

Well....you ARE.

Now youre just picking nits.

That last line would have packed alot more punch if you werent such
a complete and total retard.

-----.

--
Theres a hole in the world like a great black pit and
its filled with people who are filled with shit and the
vermin of the world inhabit it

Quote:> OK, so Microsoft Word is a good format for you, but it's riddled with
> incapatibility problems between versions, and it's not universal.
> Furthermore, there are better formats than Word DOC format, it's
> proprietary, and Word is expensive to boot.

   Did not say it is a good format, just it is the most extended one
nowadays, and just being propietary is not a sin. Anyway I find
useful to have tools to handle information in the most common
format, be my thoughts about GPL, BSD or propietary license.

   Anywat, persons are not fool, give them a better tool and
they will accept. Nowadays kword, abiword or Staroffice (have
not tried 6.0 yet) are not better tools.

Quote:> Because they can only be viewed reliably with a single piece of expensive,
> proprietary, OS-specific piece of software. Also MS Word document format
is
> a very terrible format.

   Mind most people nothing. They either do use pirated software or do look
at mail in their jobs. Internals of the format do not mind most of people.

Quote:> Why should we prevent people from doing? Why should we lock people into
> using a specific OS and a specific piece of software? What is to be
> achieved by doing this?

   I did not meant to do those.

Stallman's article is one reason why Linux gets a bad rap and the reason
why I troll in this user group. You say Linux is all about freedom to do
what ever you want but you want to force people from using Word or Windows
itself. Linux started out as nothing more then a hobby. In fact in 1991
Linus Torvalds posted a message to the comp.os.minix user group. It said:

hello everybody out there using Minix-

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing; since
april, and is starting to get ready.

That is a small snippet from the famous post from Linus Torvald. Note the
part "Just a Hobby". That is all Linux is a hobby. Personally I even enjoy
Linux for what it is a hobby. It is fun to work as a community on our own
operating system and applications for it. Linux has not left the hobby
stage yet.

Unfortunately the fun hobby Linux community has turned into a religion and
write ridiculous *as Mr. Stallman wrote. The Community lies that Linux
is better then Windows in everyway shape and form including as a desktop.
 They lie that Linux is easier to use then Windows. Lies are told that
linux apps like GIMP is better then the Windows competitors (PhotoShop).
There are many insults to that make the community look bad. Microsoft sucks
is popular. Anyone who point and clicks is stupid. Anyone who likes things
easy is is lazy or stupid. Whenever a new Linux user wants help the
community calls them stupid.

You want to advocate Linux here is some tips on how to do it the right way.
#1 Tell the truth about Linux and don't exaggerate or flat out lie about
Linux or its apps. I know many of you agree there is some (lots) of
exaggerating going on about Linux and its apps.
#2 work together more as a community. Stop fighting with each other. No one
cares if VI is better then emacs or if gnone is more pure then KDE because
it was programmed in C instead of C+ . Instead hold hands sing songs and
work together as a team to make Linux kick ass.
#3 be positive. Instead of running around like chickens with your heads cut
off yelling and screaming Microsoft sucks, they have lots of viruses and
they want to control your life you should be positive. By positive I don't
mean say nice things about Microsoft. Instead don't Mention Microsoft at
all. Instead of saying Microsoft sucks because it has viruses. Say one
advantage to Linux is there are few viruses. Instead of saying Windows
crashes all the time. Don't mention windows and just say an advantage with
Linux is it is stable. By being positive you will turn people on to Linux
instad of away from it and you will make trolling Like what me and flatfish
do less fun.Stop insulting windows users because they may like to point and
click. Say Linux give you the freedom to point and click if you want or to
use the command line. Be positive, helpful, and kind.

Just my 2 cents worth but you won't listen because I like windows. hell I
like Linux too and use it, look at my headers.

Quote:

> Apparently you do not work in the industry.  If you did, you would understand
> unquestionable that most of the people in it are complete morons, and will
> use exactly what theyre told to use by other complete morons, whether what
> theyre told to use is a piece of shit or not.

may i use that as a sig ???

thx...

--
goose

Quote:>>>And because Microsoft changes the Word file format with each release,
>> its >users are locked into a system that compels them to buy each
>> upgrade whether >they want a change or not.

>>   Kind of myth.

> 1.  They DO change the file format with each release.
> 2.  Users ARE locked into a system, therefore, that compels them to buy
>     each upgrade whether they want to or not.

> Where is the myth?

Word has not changed it file format since Word version 97. 2 versions and
no format changed.

The two topics I see here are 1) Linux vs Microsoft; 2) TeX vs
wordprocessors.  

I've tried Microsoft Windows; and it's *awful*.  The whole world is
their victim: Microsoft exists on ignorance, FUD and PR, and a large
raft of busy lawyers.  Not on usefulness.  So what's more to say?

The other part of the story has to do with documents.  I worked years
in a large university with a top reputation for science and
technology.  Most of the people there, couldn't separate in their
minds, the formatting of a document from its content.  I saw this.  So
with support from their PR, Microsoft has been able to make a Big
Thing out of their wordprocessors, which rely upon secret source; and
then it's "good business" for them to keep everyone locked out of
their little games with details.  

Microsoft has that reputation for "Enhance; Embellish; Extinguish"
against the competition.  They use it against their own older products
too, to push their users into buying new from them.

I was puzzled so little was said in this thread about TeX.  I think I
only saw it mentioned once.  TeX, unfortunately, doesn't make pretty
pictures for the users.  For an experienced user, it doesn't need to:
you scout the text source and if something jars, you fix it.  From
what I have seen (and done myself) this actually is a whole lot easier
than working on wordprocessor screens; but for people who having read
a lot of Microsoft PR, they can't see that.  

Further, Microsoft wordprocessors are a lot more scarce in the science
and engineering community, than in the business community.  Part of
the reason for this is, the Microsoft games to leach more money out of
their customers.  Yet they stay in business, working to grow even
bigger.  Microsoft is *not our largest and most successful technology
based company.*  It is the world's largest and most successful
*ignorance* based company.  

Grump.  -- Martha Adams

it started as a hobby for Linus so that he could really get to know the
ins and outs of programming the 386 chip that he had just bought... It
evolved out from the hobby stage when people brought it together with
the Gnu stuff to plug it in as the heart of a Unix clone and started to
get it to do real work...

If your going to quote Linus's original post, at least take the trouble
to read his book "Just For Fun". That will explain in great detail and
with humour just why it evolved...

Quote:>Unfortunately the fun hobby Linux community has turned into a
>religion and write ridiculous *as Mr. Stallman wrote.

not a religion... a movement. Open Source Software movement, a BIG
difference.

Quote:>The Community lies that Linux is better then Windows in
>everyway shape and form including as a desktop.

No we do not... I am amember of the "community" as you put it, and I
believe that there "Horses For Courses". You wouldn't expect a horse
bred for the Kentucky Derby to run in the Grand National SteepleChase
now would you. Windows is good for running Games on. Linux is catching
up Fast here and even blows it into the weeds with some games. Windows
is good in the Office... only because it was the only thing and short
sighted managers wanted it. Remember the phrase "Nobody Ever got Fired
For Buying Big Blue"... well for a while it was "Nobody Ever Got Fired
For Buying Microsoft", but the scales are now coming off from the eyes
of those who really have the power to change things in the workplace.
Why should they get locked into a constant upgrade cycle because the
software they bough a couple of years ago is no longer supported and
won't load in the document formats saved by more recent versions... They
are realising that there is a solution out there that is free from the
constant upgrade cycle and doesn't impact their budgets with "Licensing"
issues. They have to spend a lot of time and money keeping records of
just what is installed on what machine... It all costs money.

Quote:>They lie that Linux is easier to use then Windows.

No... yet again, the Linux desktop is getting netter and better...
Remember when the job adverts were for typists and they had to know
packages like "wordstar". That was because managers didn't want to go to
the trouble of training a person to use the package that was used in
their offices. The situation currently is the same with regards to
windows. The adverts run "must know Office"... why.... Linux
applications for office tasks are just as easy to use as ms Office. The
systems have grown up now and most users know how to drive a mouse round
the screen to get to what they need. it should only take a couple of
days now to become familiar with a new desktop... But managers are still
believing the ms line that only the windows desktop is easy and
intuitive... it is not the case now. The Linux desktop has caught up on
the ease of use stakes and yet again those who are in a position to
decide are now looking real hard at jumping ship to Linux rather than do
the XP upgrades...

Quote:>Whenever a new Linux user wants help the community calls them stupid.

Absolutely untrue. The Linux community is the most helpful one going.

Was going to really lay into your post in great detail but I've got to
go home now... :)

Paul Cooke

PS. Please attribute the poster that you are quoting. This is considered
polite behaviour and really helps people to work out who said what,
especially when they've just got "Show Unread Only" selected...

--
I tried to come up with an original signature, I failed, so this is what
you're getting instead

Quote:>>Don't you just hate receiving Word documents in email messages? Word
>>attachments are annoying

>   No, I don't hate it, why should I ? May be are annoying to RMS, but
>not for me and for a lot of people I do know.

It's annoying for many reasons:

1) The recipient may not have MS Word

2) MS Word documents are bloated, often multiplying the size of an
email by a factor of 10 or more. My girlfriend recently wrote a 3 page
memo in MS Word, and for some bizarre reason it saved as an 11Mb file.
Taking the text out (which is basically all that was in the document),
and saving it as a text file resulted in a file of less than 2k.

3) Receiving a Word attachment induces paranoia, as you wonder whether
this document is exploiting one of the many macro vulnerabilities in
MS Word.

4) Receiving a Word attachment involves opening a whole new
application just to read what is basically text. Why not put the text
straight into the email?

5) You may not be running the same version of MS Word as the sender,
and so may not be able to read the file.

6) The socio-political ramifications of using a propriety file format
devised by a convicted monopolistic organsation.

The only time MS Word attachments are even remotely acceptable is when
it is in internal email, in an organisation where MS Word is the
company standard document producing software.

Quote:>>but worse than that, they impede people from switching to free
>software. Maybe >we can stop this practice with a simple collective
>effort. All we have to do >is ask each person who sends us a Word file
>to reconsider that way of doing >things.

>   Why should people switch to free software ? Why would people want
>to switch to free software ?

Because it's "free" as in freedom of choice? Because it's often "free"
as in free beer? Why pay for MS Office when it is un-necessary?

Quote:>>And because Microsoft changes the Word file format with each release,
>its >users are locked into a system that compels them to buy each
>upgrade whether >they want a change or not.

>   Kind of myth.

Can you explain that comment? I've had many version compatibility
issues with Word in the past, it's certainly not a myth to me.

Quote:>>ome people publish or post documents in Word format. Some
>organizations will >nly accept files in Word format.

>   Well, some may be only contacted by phone, other things does
>require a fax, and so on ... is not a matter of software or computing
>companies, it is just that to do the thing X you do need the resources
>Y no matter what field we're talkinig about.

But we know that the organisation accepts email, because we're
discussing email attachments. If they can receive email then they can
receive plain text, why restrict that?

Quote:>>Someone I know was unable to apply for a job because resumes had to be
>Word >files. Even governments sometimes impose Word format on the
>public, which is >truly outrageous.

>May be a Linux user (I suppose he is proud of his brain as
>usual) can't guess how to write and send a Word document without
>having it himself ? Boys ...

Why should he have to?

Quote:>>They hesitate because they feel they must have Word available to read
>the Word >files they receive.

>   They hesitate just because free software is worse. People do use
>the best tool available for the job they're doing.

Are you saying that MS Office has the best text processor? I and many
others would disagree.

Quote:>What really puzzles RMS is that people in fact do choose Word over the
>other, why ? Because it is the best.

No, because they've been brainwashed into believing there are no other
alternatives. Because M$ licencing agreements with PC vendors means
bundled copies. Many people will simply use whatever happens to be on
their PC.
A friend of mine bought a PC which came with Lotus office suite
bundled on it. She was quite happy with the Lotus word processor, just
as she probably would've been happy with whatever word processor came
bundled on the PC.

Quote:>Why is it the best ? Bussiness practices apart, it loads faster, it does things
>faster, a lot of Word trainned people do know it.

A lot of Word trained people? I would hope that _all_ word trained
people would know it...

Quote:>As an example on my own
>machine (K6-2/350, 256MB RAM) Word does load in less than two seconds

Hey, on a P-90 with 64Mb RAM I can start vi in sub-second time. I can
also start composing an email in less than one second. Let's see what
the difference is between sending plain text and sending a Word
attachment:

Plain Text:
open email program
start composing new email
type text message
send message

Word:
open Word
create document
choose location to save document
choose name of document
close Word
open email program
start composing new email
type brief text intro
attach word document (after finding it in file dialogs)
send message
wait for bloated message to send on low bandwidth connection

hmm, I know which one is faster for me.

Quote:>>While we notice the occasional annoyance of receiving a Word
>document, this >steady and persistent harm to our community usually
>doesn't come to our >attention. But it is happening all the time.

> I rarely receive Word documents, don't know why RMS or if he really
>does reveive as many as he does say.

He doesn't say he receives many, he says the community receives many.

Quote:>   There is no illness (no more than the whole world cronic one in all
>areas), and I must not convince people of anything. I think people is
>free to choose propietary software if desired.

Yes, and people should be free to choose open source software if
desired too. An organisation saying "We only accept and send Word
attachments" is denying us that freedom of choice.

Quote:>could use VMware or wine (should have to pay for Word anyway),

Why should we have to pay for Word?

<Copyright removed for Fair Use quotes.>